WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist and author of the NYT best-selling novel GUN MACHINE. His graphic novel GLOBAL FREQUENCY is being developed for television by Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX. He is the writer of the graphic novel RED, adapted into the film starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren. His next book is NORMAL from FSG.

Perks Of The Job

Usually it’s a bad day when I get woken up three hours after I went to bed by the bloody postman leaning on the doorbell. But bless his medically-fascinating little head, he’d brought a box of music. I’ve been acquainted with Scott Booker, the manager of the Flaming Lips, for years (which is how I became an occasional judge for the Plug Awards). Haven’t heard from him in a while — making Western society a better place takes a lot of time from the likes of us, I’ll have you know. And then this box turns up, with a note inside saying, “Just realised I haven’t sent you any music in ages.”

And it’s a box stuffed with CDs. Some Flaming Lips stuff, including, my god, a seven-inch picture disc, the likes of which I haven’t seen since the 80s. What looked like a promotional pre-release of a Devendra Banhart thing. A bunch of stuff I’ve never heard of. And the remastering of MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS that was released the other month, which I hadn’t got around to buying for myself yet.

There’s a lot of shit things about this job, including but not limited to the constant deadline pressure. But you do get to meet some good and interesting people.

Am currently at pub. Things will probably be light here again today, as, in addition to finishing a couple of jobs, I need to set up the wireless fold-out keyboard I just bought for the new phone. Which in turn will mean I can set up the phone’s built-in RSS reader. The phone that I’m currently listening to mp3s on. I’m going to be living on this thing.